The Fearless Girl

The Fearless Girl statue is a bronze representation of me. Well, not really, but rather it’s a representation of how I want to feel every day but often fall short. When I visited New York City in September 2018, the girl statue was facing down a bull on Wall Street. I just love her! I visited New York with my lifelong friend Carla. We met in my late twenties at that time in our lives when we were more fearless than wise—just starting out in our careers and independent life, daring anyone to get in our way even though we hadn’t a clue on where we were headed. I am haunted by this fearless girl, the one in bronze and the one inside me. Her powerful feeling of conquering the world is one I try to recapture on a daily basis.

Back in my plucky twenties, I struck this Fearless Girl pose often. Hands on hips, head high, feet pointed forward, sometimes tapping one foot in agitation. It’s been said just standing in this pose will create actual feelings of confidence. I believe it. I would strike this pose often but more in defiance of ridiculous ideas suggested by my crazy friends—scuba diving, skiing black diamond slopes, snorkeling for conk shells, swimming with sharks. The pose was how I reacted to these insane, adrenaline-producing suggestions, and it was what I usually needed in order to stall for time or chase away my own fears before finally accepting the challenge. I struck this pose often enough that my friends called me “Boomerang” for the shape of my elbow when I stood this way.

On this 2018 day in New York City, my friend and I searched block after block for the Fearless Girl.  When we finally came upon the girl, we took our fearless poses beside her and snapped our selfies.

But had we truly re-discovered her? Was she re-discoverable?

This Fearless Girl, the one in bronze and the one in my heart, haunts me just about every day. She lingers back there in my past, taunting me a bit, egging me on, daring me to be like her again. When, exactly, did I lose her? Where was I when I lost her? Had she evaporated completely or was she just hiding beneath the layers and years of reality? Was that little girl as powerful as I remember or perhaps a bit naive?

After snapping our pictures, we walked just a few blocks away, where the Twin Towers and Memorial rose with its somber fountain listing the names and lives of those lost on that fateful September day beneath the shimmering, blue sky. As I gazed out over the names, it struck me that we, as a country, all lost our naiveté on that fateful day. And as a country, we’ve tried to find a way to stand tall again, reclaim our power, our pose in the twenty years since.

This process of reconciling growth and memory, of being fearless and wise, of avoiding the painful and seeking the empowering journey–choices my characters have also faced. I have been known to create naïve characters just to see where they will go, how they will grow, what they will learn. But if I can set them on a path to lose that naiveté in favor of power or wisdom, maybe I’ve accomplished something.

What I needed from the Fearless Girl that day back in September 2018 was my pose, my strength, my power. But I came to understand that I may have to do it without the ease of innocence, which sometimes proves harder than swimming with sharks or facing down a bull. And maybe over the years my power had grown in more significant, internal ways. Maybe time had given me a better gift than innocence—strength. I would accept that gift with grace and humility. Still, even at my age, it feels so darn good to stand with my hands on my hips, staring down a bull or whatever may come my way.